Comets, Asteroids and Meteoroids

What is it? asteroid Where are they? Big weird shaped rocks, smaller than planets Orbit between Jupiter and Mars

Many asteroids are located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid orbits are shown in brown.

What is it? comet Chunks of ice (water, carbon dioxide), dust, hydrocarbons

Comets Highly eccentric orbits

Another view showing the long elliptical orbits of Halley’ comet and comet Ikeya-Zhang

Comets

Comets Solar wind from the sun forms the tail, thus the tail is always facing away from the Sun.

What is it? meteor meteorite meteoroid: chunk of a comet or an asteroid meteor: chunk of a comet or an asteroid, going through Earth’s atmosphere meteorite: meteor that has hit the ground